From this point commences that career of achievements and prodigies on the part of this Is raelitish Hercules which rendered him the terror of his enemies and the wonder of all ages. At his wedding-feast, the attendance of a large company of paranymphs, or friends of the bridegroom, con vened ostensibly for the purpose of honouring his nuptials, but in reality to keep an insidious watch upon his movements, furnished the occasion of a common Oriental device for enlivening entertain ments of this nature. He propounded a riddle, the solution of which referred to his obtaining a quantity of honey from the carcase of a slain lion, and the clandestine manner in which his guests got possession of the clue to the enigma cost thirty Philistines their lives. The next instance of his vindictive cunning was prompted by the ill-treat ment which he had received at the hands of his father-in-law, who, upon a. frivolous pretext, had given away his danghter in marriage to another man, and was executed by securing a multitude of foxes (n+yri.,..), and, by tying firebrands to their tails, setting fire to the cornfields of his enemies. [SfluAL.] The indignation of the Philistines, on discovering the author of the outrage, vented it self upon the family of his father-in-law, who had been the remote occasion of it, in the burning of their house, in which both father and daughter perished. This was a fresh provocation, for which Samson threatened to be revenged ; and thereupon falling upon them without ceremony he smote them, as it is said, hip and thigh with a great slaughter.' The original, strictly rendered, runs, he smote them leg upon thigh'—apparentIy a proverbial expression, and implying, according to Gesenius, that he cut them to pieces, so that their limbs, their legs and thighs, were scattered and heaped promiscuously together ; equivalent to saying that he smote and destroyed them wholly, entirely. Mr. Taylor, in his edition of Calmet, recognises in these words an allusion to some kind of wrestling combat, in which perhaps the slaughter on this occasion may have commenced.
Having subsequently taken up his residence in the rock Etam, lie was thence dislodged by con senting to a pusillanimous arrangement on the part of his own countrymen, by which he agreed to sur render himself in bonds provided they would not themselves fall upon him and kill him. He pro bably gave in to this measure from a strong inward assurance that the issue of it would be to afford him a new occasion of taking vengeance upon his foes. Being brought in this apparently helpless condition to a place called from the event, Lehi, a jaw, his preternatural potency suddenly put itself forth, and snapping the cords asunder, and snatching up the jaw-bone of an ass, he dealt so effectually about him, that a thousand men were slain on the spot. That this was altogether the work, not of man, but of God, was soon demonstrated. Wearied with his exertions, the illustrious Danite became faint from thirst, and as there was no water in the place, ne prayed that a fountain might be opened. His prayer was heard ; God caused a stream to gush from a hollow rock hard by, and Samson in grati tude gave it the name of En-hakker, a word that signifies the well of him that prayed,' and which continued to be the desig,nation of the fountain ever after. The rendering in our version—` God clave a hollow place in the jaw'—is unhappy, as the ori ginal is 41-1, Lehi, the veiy term w.hich in the final clause is rendered in Lehi.' The place received its name from the circumstance of his having then so effectually wielded the jaw-bone (14, Lehi).
The Philistines were from this time held in such contempt by their victor, that he went openly into the city of Gaza, where he seems to have suffered himself weakly to be drawn into the company of a woman of loose character, the yielding to whose enticements exposed him to the most imminent peril. His presence being soon noised abroad, an attempt was made during the night forcibly to detain him, by closing the gates of the city and making them fast ; but Samson, apprised of it, rose at midnight, and breaking away bolts, bars, and hinges, de parted, carrying the gates upon his shoulders, to the top of a neighbouring hill that looks tazvard Hebron arcri Sept. 171-1 rpoadm or) roil Xeppthy, facing Hebron). The common rendering before Hebron' is less appropriate, as the dis tance between the two cities is at least twenty miles. The hill lay doubtless somewhere between the cities, and in full view of both. After this his enemies strove to entrap him by guile rather than by violence ; and they were too successful in the end. Falling in love with a woman of Sorek, named Delilah, he became so infatuated by his passion, that nothing but his bodily strength could equal his mental weakness. The princes of the Philistines, aware of Samson's infirmity, determined by meaus of it to get possession, if possible, of his person. For this purpose they propose a tempting bribe to Delilah, and she enters at once into the treacherous compact. She employs all her art and blandishments to worm from him the secret of his prodigious strength. Having for some time amused
her with fictions, he at last, in a moment of vveak ness, disclosed to her the fact that it lay in his hair, which if it werc shaved would leave him a mere com mon man. Not that his strength really lay in his hair, for this in fact had no natural influence upon it one way or the other. His strength arose from his relation to God as a .Nazarite, and the preser vation of his hair unshorn was the mark or sign of his .Nazariteship, and a plea'ge on the part of God of the continuance of his miraculous physical powers. If he lost this sign, the badge of his con secration, he broke his vow, and consequently for feited the thing signified. God abandoned him, and he was thenceforward no more, in this respect, than an ordinary man. His treacherous paramour seized the first opportunity of putting his declara tion to the test. She shaved his head while he lay sleeping in her lap, and at a concerted signal he was instantly arrested by his enemies lying in wait. Bereft of his grand endowment, and for saken of God, the champion of Israel could now well adopt the words of Solomon—` I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands are bands ; whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her ; but the sinner shall be taken by her.' Having so long presumptuously played with his ruin, Heaven leaves him to himself, as a punishment for his former guilty indulgence. He is made to reap as he had sown, and is con signed to the hands of his relentless foes. Ifis punishment was indeed severe, though he amply revenged it, as well as redeemed in a measure his own honour, by the manner in which he met his death. The Philistines having deprived him of sight, at first immured him in a prison, and made him 2rind at the mill like a slave. As this was an employment which in the East usually devolves on women, to assign it to such a man as Samson was virtually to reduce him to the lowest state of de gradation and shame. To grind corn for. others was, even for a woman, a. proverbial term expres sive of the most menial and oppressed condition. How much more for the hero of Israel, who seems to have been made grinder-general for the prison h ouse ! In process of time, while remaining in this con finement, his hair recovered its growth, and with it such a profound repentance seems to have wrought in his heart as virtually re-invested him with the character and the powers he had so culpably lost. Of this fact his enemies were not aware. Still exulting in their possession of the great scourge of their nation, they kept him, like a wild beast, for mockery and insult. On one of these occasions, when an immense multitude, including the princes and nobility of the Philistines, were convened in a large amphitheatre, to celebrate a feast in honour of their god Dagon, who had delivered their ad versaiy into their hands, Samson was ordered to be brought out to be made a laughing-stock to his enemies, a butt for their scoffs, insults, mockeries, and merriment. Secretly determined to use his recovered strength to tremendous effect, he per suaded the boy who guided his steps to conduct him to a spot uhere he could reach the two pillars upon which the roof of the building rested. Here, after pausing for a short time, while he prefers a brief prayer to Heaven, he grasps the massy pillars, and bowing with resistless force, the whole build ing rocks and totters, and the roof, encumbered with the weight of the spectators, rushes down, and the whole assembly, including Samson him self, are crushed to pieces in the ruin I Thus terminated the career of one of the most remarkable personages of all history, whether sacred or profane. The enrolment of his name by an apostolic pen (Heb. xi. 32) in the list of the ancient worthies, who had by faith obtained an excellent repute,' warrants us undoubtedly in a favourable estimate of his character on the whole, while at the same time the fidelity of the inspired narrative has perpetuated the record of infirmities which must for ever mar the lustre of his noble deeds. It is not improbable that the lapses with which Ile was chargeable arose, in a measure, from the very peculiarities of that physical temperament to which his prodigies of strength were owing ; but while this consideration may palliate, it cannot excuse the moral delinquencies into which he WaS betrayed, and of which a just Providence exacted so tremendous a penalty in the circumstances of his degradation and death.
Upon the parallel between the achievements of Samson and those of the Grecian Hercules, and the derivation of the one from the other, we cannot here enter. The Commentary of Adam Clarke presents us with the results of AI. De Lavour, an ingenious French writer on this subject, from which it will be seen that the coincidences are ex tremely striking, and such as would perhaps afford to most minds an additional proof of how much the ancient mythologies were a distorted reflection of the Scripture narrative.—G. B.